unaffected mirth, and without giving any explanation.
The sisters, who also appeared to be in high spirits, never tired of glancing at Aglaya and the prince, who were walk-ing in front. It was evident that their younger sister was a thorough puzzle to them both.
Prince S. tried hard to get up a conversation with Mrs. Epanchin upon outside subjects, probably with the good in-tention of distracting and amusing her; but he bored her dreadfully. She was absent-minded to a degree, and an-swered at cross purposes, and sometimes not at all.
But the puzzle and mystery of Aglaya was not yet over for the evening. The last exhibition fell to the lot of the prince alone. When they had proceeded some hundred paces or so from the house, Aglaya said to her obstinately silent cavalier in a quick halfwhisper:
‘Look to the right!’
The prince glanced in the direction indicated.
‘Look closer. Do you see that bench, in the park there, just by those three big trees—that green bench?’
The prince replied that he saw it.
‘Do you like the position of it? Sometimes of a morning early, at seven o’clock, when all the rest are still asleep, I come out and sit there alone.’
The prince muttered that the spot was a lovely one. ‘Now, go away, I don’t wish to have your arm any longer;
or perhaps, better, continue to give me your arm, and walk along beside me, but don’t speak a word to me. I wish to think by myself.’
The warning was certainly unnecessary; for the prince
would not have said a word all the rest of the time whether forbidden to speak or not. His heart beat loud and painful-ly when Aglaya spoke of the bench; could she—but no! he banished the thought, after an instant’s deliberation.
At Pavlofsk, on weekdays, the public is more select than it is on Sundays and Saturdays, when the townsfolk come down to walk about and enjoy the park.
The ladies dress elegantly, on these days, and it is the fashion to gather round the band, which is probably the best of our pleasure-garden bands, and plays the newest pieces. The behaviour of the public is most correct and proper, and there is an appearance of friendly intimacy among the usu-al frequenters. Many come for nothing but to look at their acquaintances, but there are others who come for the sake of the music. It is very seldom that anything happens to break the harmony of the proceedings, though, of course, accidents will happen everywhere.
On this particular evening the weather was lovely, and there were a large number of people present. All the places anywhere near the orchestra were occupied.
Our friends took chairs near the side exit. The crowd and the music cheered Mrs. Epanchin a little, and amused the girls; they bowed and shook hands with some of their friends and nodded at a distance to others; they examined the ladies’ dresses, noticed comicalities and eccentricities among the people, and laughed and talked among them-selves. Evgenie Pavlovitch, too, found plenty of friends to bow to. Several people noticed Aglaya and the prince, who were still together.
Before very long two or three young men had come up, and one or two remained to talk; all of these young men appeared to be on intimate terms with Evgenie Pavlovitch. Among them was a young oficer, a remarkably handsome fellow—very good-natured and a great chatterbox. He tried to get up a conversation with Aglaya, and did his best to secure her attention. Aglaya behaved very graciously to him, and chatted and laughed merrily. Evgenie Pavlovitch begged the prince’s leave to introduce their friend to him. The prince hardly realized what was wanted of him, but the introduction came off; the two men bowed and shook hands.
Evgenie Pavlovitch’s friend asked the prince some ques-tion, but the latter did not reply, or if he did, he muttered something so strangely indistinct that there was nothing to be made of it. The oficer stared intently at him, then glanced at Evgenie, divined why the latter had introduced him, and gave his undivided attention to Aglaya again. Only Evgenie Pavlovitch observed that Aglaya flushed up for a moment at this.
The prince did not notice that others were talking and making themselves agreeable to Aglaya; in fact, at moments, he almost forgot that he was sitting by her himself. At other moments he felt a longing to go away somewhere and be alone with his thoughts, and to feel that no one knew where he was.
Or if that were impossible he would like to be alone at home, on the terrace-without either Lebedeff or his chil-dren, or anyone else about him, and to lie there and think—a
day and night and another day again! He thought of the mountains-and especially of a certain spot which he used to frequent, whence he would look down upon the distant valleys and fields, and see the waterfall, far off, like a little silver thread, and the old ruined castle in the distance. Oh! how he longed to be there now—alone with his thoughts— to think of one thing all his life—one thing! A thousand years would not be too much time! And let everyone here forget him—forget him utterly! How much better it would have been if they had never known him—if all this could but prove to be a dream. Perhaps it was a dream!
Now and then he looked at Aglaya for five minutes at a time, without taking his eyes off her face; but his expression was very strange; he would gaze at her as though she were an object a couple of miles distant, or as though he were looking at her portrait and not at herself at all.
‘Why do you look at me like that, prince?’ she asked sud-denly, breaking off her merry conversation and laughter with those about her. ‘I’m afraid of you! You look as though you were just going to put out your hand and touch my face to see if it’s real! Doesn’t he, Evgenie Pavlovitch—doesn’t he look like that?’
The prince seemed surprised that he should have been addressed at all; he reflected a moment, but did not seem to take in what had been said to him; at all events, he did not answer. But observing that she and the others had begun to laugh, he too opened his mouth and laughed with them.
The laughter became general, and the young oficer, who seemed a particularly lively sort of person, simply shook
with mirth.
Aglaya suddenly whispered angrily to herself the word— ‘Idiot!’
‘My goodness—surely she is not in love with such a— surely she isn’t mad!’ groaned Mrs. Epanchin, under her breath.
‘It’s all a joke, mamma; it’s just a joke like the ‘poor knight’ —nothing more whatever, I assure you!’ Alexandra whispered in her ear. ‘She is chafing him—making a fool of him, after her own private fashion, that’s all! But she carries it just a little too far—she is a regular little actress. How she frightened us just now—didn’t she?—and all for a lark!’
‘Well, it’s lucky she has happened upon an idiot, then, that’s all I can say!’ whispered Lizabetha Prokofievna, who was somewhat comforted, however, by her daughter’s re-mark.
The prince had heard himself referred to as ‘idiot,’ and had shuddered at the moment; but his shudder, it so hap-pened, was not caused by the word applied to him. The fact was that in the crowd, not far from where lie was sitting, a pale familiar face, with curly black hair, and a well-known smile and expression, had flashed across his vision for a mo-ment, and disappeared again. Very likely he had imagined it! There only remained to him the impression of a strange smile, two eyes, and a bright green tie. Whether the man had disappeared among the crowd, or whether he had turned towards the Vauxhall, the prince could not say.
But a moment or two afterwards he began to glance keenly about him. That first vision might only too likely be
the forerunner of a second; it was almost certain to be so. Surely he had not forgotten the possibility of such a meet-ing when he came to the Vauxhall? True enough, he had not remarked where he was coming to when he set out with Aglaya; he had not been in a condition to remark anything at all.
Had he been more careful to observe his companion, he would have seen that for the last quarter of an hour Agla-ya had also been glancing around in apparent anxiety, as though she expected to see someone, or something particu-lar, among the crowd of people. Now, at